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Rear Adm. Tom Druggan is commander of the 8-Division strong Naval Surface Warfare Center (NSWC) HQ. He leads more than 18,000 scientists, engineers, technicians and support personnel located across the United States. A native of Lexington, Kentucky, Druggan is a 1989 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, and previously commanded the Aegis ballistic missile defense […]

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GI Bill 2.0: Housing Allowance Adjustments

Robert Bailey, a veterans benefits coordinator for the Biloxi Veterans Hospital, briefs active duty sailors and retirees on the new Post 9/11 GI Bill at Naval Construction Battalion Center, Gulfport. The new GI Bill took effect Aug 1, 2009. Service members may be eligible for the Post 9/11 GI Bill if they served at least 90 consecutive days on active duty on or after Sept. 11, 2001, and were honorably discharged. U.S. Navy photo By Mass Communication Specialist 1st Class Terry Spain

The Post-9/11 Veterans Educational Assistance Improvements Act, more commonly known as the Post-9/11 GI Bill 2.0 or “Fix Bill,” was passed in December 2010 to make needed adjustments to the Post-9/11 GI Bill. While those adjustments have been overwhelmingly positive, simplifying many provisions and extending coverage to a greater number of service members, these improvements have come at the expense of several cost-saving measures that have, in some cases, reduced benefits for service members.

In particular, these adjustments have had several consequences for the law’s monthly housing (living) stipend, all of which will be implemented in August of 2011:

Eligibility extended to distance learners: One of the biggest knocks on the original Post-9/11 GI Bill was that it excluded any living assistance to students who were taking a full course load on-line, from accredited institutions such as the University of Phoenix, Capella University, and American Military University. The Improvements Act allows these students a modified living allowance, equal to half the national average of the housing stipend which for 2011, is $1,347. Bob Norton (USA-Ret.), deputy director of Government Relations for the Military Officers Association of America, thinks this allowance for distance learners – a growing segment of veteran students – is one of the most significant provisions of the Improvements Act. “If you are cranking out online courses in your basement and you don’t go to a physical campus, you can still get $673.50 to help you make ends meet, for whatever you need to do to continue your program,” he said. “This is a great provision for folks who had been excluded before.”

The option to choose the GI Bill housing stipend over the subsistence allowance of the VA’s Vocational Rehabilitation and Employment (VR&E) program: Under the VA’s disability rating system, wounded warriors are assigned a subsistence rate that often, Norton explained, is lower than the housing stipend for which they might be eligible under the Post-9/11 GI Bill. “If you are a disabled veteran coming back from Iraq or Afghanistan and you are rated by the VA at 20 percent or greater – in other words you have a disability that came as a result of your military service since 9/11 – you can get counseling services, testing, job placement, and use your GI Bill underneath that Voc-Rehab umbrella,” he said. “But your cost of living stipend was way less than the Post-9/11 GI Bill’s. So now those folks who want to go to college and use the VR&E can choose, if they wish, to take the full national average for housing, which in many cases more than doubles what they were getting under VR&E.”

An end to “break pay”: The bill’s previous version often paid housing benefits to full-time students whether school was in session or not. The Improvements Act has scrapped this provision: The housing stipend will not apply during mandatory school breaks. When school is not in session, such as during the extended winter break, students are responsible for earning their rent.

Prorated payments: The monthly housing stipend will now be prorated based on a student’s “rate of pursuit.” This provision, Norton explained, was added to eliminate a deal that was considered a bit too sweet for students who were previously considered “full-time” simply because they took a shade over half of what the VA had designated as a full course load: 12 credits.

“It used to be that if you were enrolled for seven credits at a college, you would get the full monthly housing allowance,” Norton said. “So you’d get about $2,400 a month, for example, to take seven credits at San Francisco State – a pretty darn good deal. The government has said: ‘Not really what we intended, not really fair.’” Under the new law, the student in Norton’s example would receive about 58 percent of the basic housing allowance.

Prorated payments are probably the biggest money-saver in the Improvements Act – which means a significant number of students will see their housing allowances reduced under the new law, which, while simplifying the formula for tuition payments, makes the calculation of housing/living allowances a bit more complicated for the VA. Three factors – rate of pursuit, locality, and the student’s eligibility tier (the amount of creditable active-duty service) – will now be used to calculate each student’s housing payment.

well you guys are confusing the hell out of vets relying on the housing allownace because the vet looks at the bah for the zip code of the school and says am getting x amount when the recive opposite it throws a ringer in the budget of that person the school and va should have a pay table an actual one to give to the vet student this is to include the rate of pursuit of that school and let the vet rep if any explain what is going on so that the vet is not disinlusioned or thinking that the are going to get the full deal an example of this is that i was getting 2175 all of a suden i got 1957 this is for los angeles county and any city in los angeles county to include the city of los angeles it turned out the my rate of pursuit at Itt tech was 90 precent a 11 precent deduction from the bah alone if your rate of pursuit is 50 preent and lower kiss your bah good bye ask the FA folks what is the rate of pursuit i only found out that out through the gi bill folks and don’t be affraid to ask what is going on with your money the school won’t have a clue normaily the va gi bill folks send a letter explaing your benifits and all the good stuff
the bottom line if the school didn’t get paid you didn’t get paid also on a bigger note if you get a portion of your bah then it relfect that the gi bill folks got the current enrollment form and had not been process it will take 1-3 weeks